High-value silage worth the effort

Putting effort in to getting high feed value silage will pay off by boosting ewe condition at lambing as well as lamb birth and weaning weights.

This was the conclusion from Teagasc's Tim Keady at the British Society of Animal Science Conference, Belfast who explained how nutrition in late pregnancy influenced lamb birth and weaning weight. "Each 1kg increase in lamb birth weight can increase weaning weight by between 3.2kg and 3.4kg," he said.

The study fed high feed value silage (DM 257g/kg, ME 11.4MJ/kg DM) and medium feed value silage ( DM 248g/kg, ME 10.5MJ/kg DM) along with varying levels of concentrates to ewes in late pregnancy.

"We found, when offered to pregnant ewes, high feed value silage supplemented with 5kg of concentrate produced lambs of similar birth and weaning weights as ewes offered medium feed value silage supplemented with either 15kg or 25kg of concentrate," said Dr Keady.

"Ewes offered high feed value silage had higher condition and weight post lambing and concentrate level offered with the high feed value silage did not alter ewe liveweight post lambing or lamb birth weight," he said.

16 April 2010